


While You're Still Young

by Animus_Vox



Series: They All Grow Up [1]
Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies), Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: AU Interpretation, Bullying, Child Abuse, Childhood to Adulthood, Emotional Abuse, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Jack Still Deals With Being A Guardian, Relationship Growth, canon character death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2014-07-23
Packaged: 2018-02-09 02:48:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1966080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Animus_Vox/pseuds/Animus_Vox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Childhood can be rocky; it all depends on who you're friends with and who you have protecting you. Jack still has kind of a huge soft spot for the little ones he can be an older brother to.</p><p>(Hiccup and Jack, meeting and interacting through childhood. Hiccup needs the friendship, and Jack just wants someone to take care of.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updated the tags and categories again to be more proper for this specific work in the series.
> 
> So, for anyone following this story, yes: the endgame is an eventual blossoming Hijack relationship. This is not, however, where I'm starting the story. A major arcing theme I have planned for this series is the nature of changing relationships, and they all center around Hiccup. You're going to see a lot of Hiccup's feelings towards the people around him shift as he gets older: with Stoick, with Jack, with Snotlout, and so on.
> 
> Right now, we're still at the baseline, and Hiccup is very young, so his connection with Jack still kind of ends at "brotherly" and is tangential at best. If you want to see how everything changes later on, you'll have to stick around and see what comes up!

More than any of the other Guardians combined, Jack Frost was aware that keeping the belief alive was more than just leaving coins under pillows, hiding eggs in the bushes and appearing presents under trees. More than dreaming of fairies, plains of snow and towers of ice and of miracles that could happen at any moment.

Keeping the belief alive - the belief that he was real, that they were _all_ there, and that everything they ever saw was worth believing in - was a job. It was part of _their_ job, and it was an _art._ And as the years turned and Jack watched as the world changed, he became somewhat an artist himself.

The trouble he seemed to keep having, though, was the price that came with his dedication to that job. Which Tooth and North were currently in the process of reminding him. Predictably, Tooth was pleading with him, while North was more struck with the non-negotiable approach.

"Jack -" Tooth had her hands pressed together as if in prayer, wings beating in a frantic fluttering pattern very unlike her usual. It was hard for her to stay in one spot as she moved because she would constantly lift herself up, then overcompensate for the extra work and flit back down. "- _Please,_ for your sake, see some _sense._ "

The temperature of the room couldn't get much colder, and if North didn't already live in one of the coldest places on Earth, he would complain. When Jack's anger fell, it fell all around him. They could see their breath crystallizing in the air as they talked, and wherever he stepped, jagged spikes of frost stabbed into North's mahogany floors. He swung his staff around and jabbed it in Toothiana's direction with an angry glare.

"You know, just because you two've been in the club longer than I have doesn't mean you know what's best for me."

"Don't be confrontational." North grumbled, crossing his burly, tattooed arms and fixing Jack with a look that could send all the yetis in the place scattering. "Is not with small weight in mind that we tell you these things. This lesson is _very_ important, Jack. Disappointing that you must have same lesson twice."

A blast of frigid air whipped up around him in a frenzy when he shouted back. "A _lesson?_ You call that a _lesson?!_ "

Tooth shot her long-bearded companion a scolding look. North sighed heavily and nursed a developing headache tensing at his temples. "Not to take away _impact_ of it. What I meant -"

" _Shut up!_ Save it!" Jack slammed his staff down, the ice that formed from it obliterating pieces of the wood under his feet. "I know exactly what you meant! And you know what I think of that? _Screw you!_ "

"Jack!" Toothiana put herself right in his path as he lifted himself airborne, obviously planning to leave. "Jack, if you keep doing this, you're just going to keep hurting yourself in the long run. _Please_ take our advice. It's terrible when you suffer. We all have to make sacrifices for our roles - that's just the way that it is. You have to think of the bigger picture."

Jack leaned forward, fixing Tooth with a withering glare that left her feeling frozen on the spot from the inside-out.

"Your 'bigger picture'," he growled out, " _sucks._ "

When he dodged around her and rushed out, Toothiana made to follow. North stopped her. "Let him go." He hid his face behind his hand, eyes closed, like shutting out his senses would block him from having to handle the hot mess that had just exploded in front of them. "He needs to learn hard way. Best to do is be there for him when the disaster falls."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In his worst of moods, Jack finds pleasure in making the people of Portland as cold as they can stand it. But even in his worst of moods, he finds the cruelty that pervades the behaviors of some children completely unacceptable. He meets a timid little boy in a quiet neighborhood one winter's day the week before Christmas, and decides for the first time in a long time that he should step in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Added relevant tags to the Story Summary as a forewarning. Will probably add more as I go along. Better to be safe than sorry!
> 
> This chapter: in which Snotlout is a bully, even when he's little, Hiccup doesn't know what a mother is, and Stoick is still the Brave Protector before the Terrifying Punisher.

Portland, Maine had seen some cold winters, but even the locals this year were in awe at how frigid and snowy it was. Winter had fallen early for them, sometime in late November, beginning with biting, blustery winds and temperatures in the teens which, on its own, didn't do much apart from inconvenience the visitors who weren't smart enough to dress in layers. As they crept into December, however, the snowfall began - and it got colder. And colder. And no amount of sunlight during the day could break the ice and frost that covered the ground where the snow couldn't reach. _That_ got the people talking; every adult from the east to the west border of the state could be heard complaining about the weather. Before Christmas, it had been in the single-digits or lower for three and a half weeks. Fireplaces blazed, people huddled together in their homes and stocked up on necessaries, and sometimes bitterly mumbled how Mother Nature must be in a _mood,_ and what could they possibly send her way to break this cold snap?

As it turned out, someone _was_ in a mood, but A: they would never hear him admit to it, and B: he wasn't Mother Nature. But Jack was happy to make them all miserable for a little while by giving them nearly record-breaking conditions that could make even the most conservative mind re-think their stance on the whole Global Warming Thing. He wasn't really _happy,_ but that was the whole point: he wasn't happy, and he wanted _someone_ to suffer for how cheated he felt. And the other Guardians couldn't say anything about it, because what child in the country could say this cold was making them suffer? Backup generators, staffed hospitals, well-insulated homes and paranoid parents made sure their precious young ones were safe, and if they weren't playing outside, they were enjoying Jack's frost ferns on their windows or watching the snow drifts pile higher and higher. Jack had learned long ago how the things that upset the adults could look positively magical to children, and he took advantage of that in any way he could.

On a day when it wasn't snowing (but the schools were still closed - black ice on the roads), the Guardian drifted across the skies and watched as young ones of all ages bundled up in clothes so thick you could hardly see their little faces and found total joy in the winter wonderland spread out before them. He saw kids making snow angels, having snowball fights, and rolling up snowmen and putting candy strip, pebble bits and plastic coal lump smiles on their faces and blessing them with mismatched sticks for arms. Some younger ones who were being watched by the teenagers had sleds, and whole groups of them would find some large hill or another (sometimes artificially created just from all the snow that had fallen), climb all the way to the top, and screech happily as they were either pushed or simply _leapt_ headlong into the rush.

Jack enjoyed seeing these little ones happy, even with all of their faces chapped and stained ruddy from the cold, but he tried not to think too hard about what or _who_ all this fun out in the winter freeze reminded him of. He ignored every pang when he saw a red sled, every bitter expression twisted into his features when the snowball fights got just a little _too_ fun. At least, this year, now that the pain of loss was subsiding, he found it much easier than previously.

 

* * *

 

Every Guardian, he had been told, was attracted to something, and they all had their ways of addressing the "special cases" - and for each of them, _special cases_ meant something different. It depended on the Guardian and what they were protecting. "For example," said Tooth, the time she had explained it, with that famous pearly-white smile, "Of course, I like to help children believe when they have a certain trouble with it. That's one aspect. We all have that desire - to show the little ones we're really here for them and that there's magic in the world."

Jack had listened, eyebrows up. Confused, and a little itchy about being sat down for a talk (he preferred to discover it all as he went his own way), but following. "Okay. And what's the other _aspect_?"

This was the part that seemed to make Toothiana get excited. Her wings fluttered particularly hard and she scooted a little closer to Jack, violet eyes gleaming bright. She was all bundled up and bursting with energy, even in her posture, like she was preparing to impart to him some great, untold secret.

"Remember how I told you about the importance of the teeth?" she asked.

Considering the circumstances he'd learned that from, it was pretty hard to forget. "Sure," Jack replied readily, "You and the other Baby Teeth protect the memories that are inside them."

"Yes." Tooth laced her fingers together in her lap, "And we help children to remember, if they ever forget. Those are my 'special cases'. My help is most needed with the little ones that don't remember the good things. Sometimes it's literal, sometimes not - like when they don't _want_ to forget, but something is pushing them away from it? That's where I come in."

And that's how Jack realized the depths that Guardian-hood reached to, and what their callings were. Tooth took kids that were wrought with bad memories, Sandy fought an ever-ongoing battle with Pitch, North was responsible for the ones that thought magic was all sleeve tricks and old stories, and Bunny had...the kids who never got enough eggs in their baskets. (Okay, _no,_ but the angry glare that old kangaroo always gave him when he said that was still _really funny._ )

Meanwhile, Jack...

 

* * *

 

"Hey."

He didn't know how to really describe what happened when a _special case_ came up. All Jack knew was he turned his head, drew a bit closer, and had found what was making his Spidey Senses get all tingly. A little boy looked up from the pile of misshapen snow he was sculpting with mitten-covered hands. He couldn't be older than four, but the boy who was towering over him was at least six. The littler one ducked his head and kept shaping. Maybe if he didn't pay attention, the other boy would go away.

No such luck. "Whatcha buildin'?"

The little boy frowned deeply, and it occurred to Jack as he watched their dynamic that the older kid in this equation was clearly not wanted. His presence was ruining fun.

"I said," repeated the older boy, leaning right into the four-year-old's space, " _whatcha buildin'_?"

When the younger boy sighed, it was a puff of hot air that crystallized to moisture in front of him. "A dragon," he said.

Despite his ever-present sour mood, Jack snorted and his lips curled up into a smile. It was especially precious because the lumps of pushed-together snow that the kid was working on looked _nothing like_ any sort of dragon Jack had ever seen. And while he and the older boy agreed on that front, the words that pierced the Guardian's ears told him that the intent from below him was a lot more malicious. "It looks like a dead cat."

The boy sitting cross-legged in the snow had probably never looked so insulted. "Nuh-uh!"

"Yeah- _huh,_ " answered the six-year-old, who looked genuinely pleased with himself as he sat beside the smaller wide-eyed child, and began to mash and mush his beautiful snow dragon creation, much to the younger boy's screaming, pleading horror. "You got the body all wrong," he said, narrating to the little boy as he mutilated the sculpture, twisting it into something altogether different. "And he needs a tail."

"Stoooop!" The younger boy _whined_ to get the other's attention, pushing at his arms and trying to block his hands. "Cut it out!"

 _Shit._ This had officially crossed beyond "innocent bystander" territory. Jack's expression warped with disgust as he dropped to the ground, but he stopped before he could finish his train of thought (the one where he wanted to kick up a huge pile of snow onto this little shit and tell him to _leave the kid alone_ ). The best Jack could usually do in these situations was diffuse misery with fun - but if this kid's best idea of _fun_ was picking on others who were smaller than him, then he had a problem. His powers were just tour guides, kind of. They weren't necessarily _overwhelming._ Jack had learned that, too, before he'd become a Guardian, and he'd learned it the hard way.

Meanwhile, the six-year-old frowned at the younger child pounding on his arms, and he flicked his arm in a particularly cutting motion that pushed the four-year-old off of him and onto his back in the snow. "What're you upset for?" He demanded. "I'm tryin'a _help._ "

"I don't _want_ your help!" The younger boy cried, sitting up again and pounding his mittens in the snow. The older child ignored him, and kept messing up his snow-dragon which no longer looked like anything but a ruined pile of white. " _Snotlout!_ " He exclaimed, that desperate whine in his voice growing more urgent.

Jack snapped and flicked his fingers in an urgent gesture at himself, squeezing his staff in his hand. He began to look around the cul-de-sac for ideas. Footsteps were behind where the boy was sitting, leading out from the front door of the house behind him. So, he hadn't wandered very far from home, which meant his parents had to be inside. That would work. Jack scooped up a handful of snow and packed it together - as big and impactful he could make it - and not a moment too soon, threw it at the window so hard the glass panes rattled in their framing with the splatter. Just as he did this, the four-year-old grew so sick of the invasive presence of the older boy who had destroyed his sculpture that he took his cold little mitten hands, and _smacked_ Snotlout on his shoulder blade, the pop of his palm flatly hitting the older child through his coat muffled by the expanse of the yard.

Jack turned around just in time to see the bigger boy glare daggers at the one he'd upset, and retaliate by taking one gloved, snow-covered hand, and hitting the little boy across his face as hard as he could. The wails that were torn from the child's throat as a result traveled the whole cul-de-sac, and the temperature dropped a few degrees colder in the yard.

" _HEY!_ " Jack screamed, to no-one in particular, because he knew the little shit couldn't hear him. But it made him feel better. What would make him feel a _lot_ better, though? Completely _burying_ this brat in a snowstorm.

As he was entertaining the idea, however, the arrival of a large, burly, red-bearded savior in a ratty old robe dashed all of Jack's hopes of personally taking control. But that was fine, because this had to be the father who was storming out of the house: bare feet trudging the snow, cold hands hardened to fists, towering with hidden muscle and looking every bit the fierce old dragon the boy had been creating from the snow, who set eyes upon his crying boy, saw the now _terrified_ culprit, and flared his nostrils.

The man didn't even ask an opinion before scooping up the little wailing body in the snow, and cuddling him against his chest like he was the most precious treasure in the world. "What happened?" He growled.

" _Nothing!_ " Cried Snotlout, bewildered and afraid.

The father shook a finger at the child and told him to be quiet, and he clamped his mouth shut, heart hammering in his chest. Then the man turned to his son, bouncing him into a more comfortable position on his arm, smoothing away some of the snow that had stuck to his now bright-red cheek. "Hiccup? What happened?"

The comfort and protection of his father seemed to be all the boy needed to pour his whole heart out. Hiccup preached to him, in the way that most all four-year-olds do, about how he had been building a dragon in the snow, and how Snotlout had come over and ruined it, and pushed him, and _hit_ him. Jack watched from the sidelines with tentative relief - at least it seemed like this was a parent who was willing to protect. He felt better knowing that he'd made the right choice.

"Go home, Snotlout," the father said. There were immediate protests, and the stocky red-bearded man wouldn't hear them. " _Go home,_ " he repeated, "And tell your father I'd like to speak with him."

Gut-churning horror sank into Snotlout's expression. Jack had never felt such satisfaction as the boy trudged across the cul-de-sac to his house, which apparently was directly across from Hiccup's. _Serves you right,_ Jack thought. As Hiccup's father shushed him, eased his worries and took him back inside, the Guardian turned his attentions to the completely dashed hopes that lay in the snow in the shape of a white mound that used to be a snow dragon. Nobody really noticed as he got to his knees in the cold and began to ponder over how to apply three-hundred years of snow talents to fix this.

 

* * *

 

The little brown-haired boy Jack had indirectly saved from an afternoon of misery was curled up on his living room couch with a mug of hot chocolate and his favorite dragon-themed blanket, watching television with a much-loved family friend when Snotlout's father came by his father's door.

"Now, Stoick," the dark-haired man started, "There must be an agreement we can come to about this."

"Oh, aye?" Stoick crossed his arms, his whole posture reading _protective_ and _immovable._ "And what agreement might that be, Spitelout?"

Spitelout shrugged, making a noncommittal expression. "How's your boy? No harm done?"

"I wouldn't call the likes of him crying _no harm done._ "

"Well, he ain't marked, is he?" Spitelout scoffed, "Way my Snotlout tells it, he hardly bumped him. Just a hit on the cheek, maybe got a bit red, but he ain't _bleedin',_ I take it."

Stoick put his hands on the frame of his door, blocking Spitelout's vision in to his home, and leaned forward until it was too intimidating for the man to keep his feet on Stoick's front porch, and he had to back up a couple steps. "Your boy," Stoick said carefully, anger dripping from every word, "Came into _my_ front yard, accosted _my_ boy, pushed him, _hit_ him -"

"A pair of boys having fun in the snow ain't grounds for callin' my kid a _troublemaker,_ Stoick."

Stoick remained unconvinced. "It is when the sight I lay eyes on leaves me thinkin' that your _troublemaker_ was the only one having fun!"

Now Spitelout was glaring back, and he started to throw some of his own weight around, pushing back into Stoick's space as much as the man was pressing his. "Not the way _he_ tells it! Your Hiccup hit him on the shoulder when he was building a snowman!"

Stoick stuck a meaty finger up between how close their faces were, establishing a physical boundary which he was literally _daring_ Spitelout to cross. "One - your boy _pushed_ mine," he hissed. "Two - he _hit_ him. In the face. With a handful of snow."

"Is that what you _know_ happened, or what your _kid_ told you?"

"All I know," Stoick snapped, "Is that your son is _almost seven,_  Hiccup is barely _four,_ and that when I came out into my front yard, Snotlout was sitting looking mighty pleased with himself, while my boy was crying with his face in the ground." And here, as Hiccup gazed with wonder outside his window and peeked his head up over the sill where he could reach to stare at his front yard, Stoick left Spitelout with no room for argument. "Control your child, Spitelout, or I will personally volunteer to control him _for_ you."

If Spitelout had anything further to say, Stoick didn't give him the platform. He told the man to have a pleasant day, with pursed lips and gnashed teeth, even as he shut the door in his neighbor's face and locked it. Almost immediately after they were alone again, a wondrous cry erupted from his son a couple of feet away. " _Whoooaaaa!_ "

Curiosity piqued, Stoick came over to the window. "What is it, son?" He followed Hiccup's gaze, and when he saw it, was in just as much awe: there was a child-sized dragon perfectly sculpted in the snow, smiling at them from the front yard. It barely came up to Stoick's knee, but to Hiccup, it probably looked huge. Still, it was there. "Wow! Would you look at that!"

Hiccup bounced up and down on his feet excitedly. "Dragon! It's a dragon!"

"You're right! It is!" Stoick put his hands on Hiccup's shoulders, grinning from ear to ear and taking in the magic with his son, happy to see him distracted from the day's woes. "That's a right proper dragon, Hiccup. Did you build that?"

"Uh-uh." Hiccup shook his head, green eyes still wide.

Gobber, the family friend (more Hiccup's uncle, really) who had been directing his attentions to cartoons from the couch, peered out another window, eyebrows going up. "Maybe some kids in the neighborhood made it for 'im," Stoick said to him, "Isn't that nice?"

"Sure," said Gobber with a grin. "Or Old Man Winter took to 'im and decided to gift Hiccup a proper dragon guardian this year."

"Gobber, please," Stoick groaned, casting a look.

Gobber ignored him, bending down to Hiccup's level. "Whatcha thinkin', Hiccup? Think Old Man Winter's a fan of your dragons?"

Hiccup chewed on his fingers until his father tugged his hands out of his mouth and told him to stop, and shrugged back. His Uncle Gobber was always telling him stories about fantastical creatures (hence the love of dragons), and he'd more or less come to presume that if Gobber told him Old Man Winter left him a dragon, then Old Man Winter must have left him a dragon. And out of the corner of his eye, Hiccup thought he saw a flash of pale blue - even though when he looked out the window at the cute little snow dragon on his lawn, the person wasn't there anymore. And while he had the feeling that what he saw looked more like an older brother than an old man, it was enough for him to go on, and he went on believing that Uncle Gobber's stories were probably true.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hiccup is pretty damn smart for a four-year-old, Jack is the quiet bystander in his life, and Gobber thinks he's the most precious little brat to ever draw air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Research for this worldbuilding chapter went as follows:
> 
> Google -> "fishing season in Maine"  
> Results -> "HEY WHOA DO YOU WANNA BUY THIS FISHING POLE???"
> 
> Google -> "commercial fishing season in Maine"  
> Results -> "We are the state government of Maine and we're here to talk legalese to you about everything but the official commercial fishing seasons"
> 
> Google -> "molting season for lobsters"  
> Results -> "In Canada, fishing season for lobsters peaks from April to June and again in December. It is heaviest in the Gulf of Maine, Bay of Fundy, and Nova Scotia. Maine lobster fishing season continues through summer for soft-shell lobsters and peaks from mid September to late November for hard-shell lobsters."
> 
> Me: Amazing

Jack wasn't quite sure what Snotlout's father said to him, but for quite a while after the snow dragon incident, the little brat stopped bothering Hiccup.

The Guardian came by every so often. Just to check on him. He was there on Christmas Morning when Hiccup opened up his presents (another dragon figurine to add to his collection - excitement! And a child's fishing pole, which Stoick said they were going to put to use in the spring - not so much excitement), and once every couple of weeks after to see what the child was up to. This went on for almost a year, with only little snow dragons and frost ferns on their windows every so often as proof of his visits. Jack had become very adept at learning by observation - one of many, many skills he picked up from so long living as a ghost.

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III had one of the strangest damn names Jack had ever heard in his life, but it still wasn't as strange as Stoick, Gobber or Snotlout. He hated his middle name, peas and carrots, and Snotlout; loved anything about dragons, his Uncle Gobber's stories, and drawing. His mother had been out of the picture since he was two and although he recognized her face in pictures, of which Stoick kept very few in the general areas of the house, he was probably too young and had lost her too early to really know anything about her. His Uncle Gobber picked up the slack with raising him whenever Stoick was gone, which happened often because Stoick worked as a lobsterman and had his own boat and crew. Because of the seasons for lobster catching, Stoick was largely gone for the beginning of Hiccup's school year until he could ask for time off around Christmas, except for a couple of weeks between boat trips, and was completely absent during the summer when tourist season was in full swing. But, from what Jack could observe, at least Stoick appeared to be trying - he never missed a Christmas or birthday, was vaguely aware of what his son was interested in, made sure Hiccup was cared and provided for and played games with him when he was home when he wasn't doing bills or taxes.

As far as Hiccup's interests and development went, Jack witnessed a very clear divide in what the child got from whom in the case of his two very different role models. From Uncle Gobber, he picked up his love for fantasy and games, a singing ability that far surpassed Gobber's, and a _slight_ investment in the occasional harmless rule-breaking. From his father, Hiccup got a passion for seafood, an edge in logical reasoning, even for a four-year-old, and a mind like a steel trap. There was a time when Hiccup wanted a piece of chocolate cake that Uncle Gobber had baked, but at the time that he'd asked for it, his father told him no. When Hiccup became insistent, Stoick told him:

"If you can clean the whole house for me, you can have a slice of chocolate cake."

Hiccup, with his fingers in his mouth, pouted up at Stoick while he and Gobber each had a slice of cake. Gobber took pity on the sight and tried to convince Stoick to change his mind.

"Can't he have a _little_ piece? It's just cake, Stoick."

"Absolutely not. It's almost his bedtime."

"Staying up late for one night won't hurt, will it?"

This went back and forth for a few moments, with little Hiccup standing right by the kitchen table, listening to his father insist there was no cake before bedtime, and Gobber defending that _one_ piece of cake for _one_ night wouldn't hurt anyone. And right as Stoick was about to come back with something that might leave the conversation right there -

"Okay. Night, Dad," Hiccup said, hugging Stoick's arm, then toddling around to Gobber and doing the same for him. "Night, Uncle Gobber."

They stared at Hiccup in bewilderment, while Jack peered in from the kitchen window, already ten steps ahead of his caretakers and grinning about it. Hiccup had gotten a look in his eye during that conversation that he tended to get when he was up to something. Jack didn't know what it was, but Stoick and Gobber just assumed the kid had lost interest in the cake.

But the next day, when he got home from preschool at The Children's Center, Jack watched as Hiccup shut himself away in his room and started cleaning. He cleaned in the best way any four-year-old knew how, and then he moved on to the bathroom, where he began to clean up there, too - mainly by putting away items that were scattered and picking up any pieces of trash he saw on the floor. He did this until it was time for dinner, ate with Stoick and Gobber, watched television for a little and then went to bed. The next day, Gobber was the only one home when Hiccup walked up to him with a stack of magazines that had been left out on the kitchen table.

"Uncle Gobber?" He said, leaning back a little with the amount of magazines he was carrying. They kept sliding out of his arms and Hiccup kept twisting, trying to keep them from going all over the floor. Gobber watched him with his eyebrows up, smiling, and trying not to laugh.

"Boy, what're you doing with all those magazines?"

"Where do we put these away?" Hiccup asked.

Gobber knotted his eyebrows together, puzzled. "Errrm..." he got up from the living room couch where he was sitting. "There's a...there's a rack for 'em, in the kitchen. I'll show you." Hiccup began to walk along with him, and Gobber reached out with one hand to steady the magazines. "Watch it, kiddo, don't want 'em fallin' all over."

He led the little brunet over to a magazine rack that was wedged between the kitchen counter and the pantry, and after Hiccup set the stack on the ground, Gobber said, "You can just put 'em on the bottom shelf."

Hiccup looked up at him like he had grown two heads while Jack watched from the window again. "They're all different," he pointed out.

"...Do what?" Gobber blinked at Hiccup, surprised.

The child pointed to one stack of magazines, which were all one series of fishing magazines, and then another which was all home decor. "They're not the same."

It took Gobber a minute. He was a little bit busy being floored by the four-year-old in front of him. "...Ah!" He said, "So they are. Well, let's divvy 'em up, then."

Jack watched, clinging to his staff outside, while Hiccup worked with his Uncle to divide up the magazines into their proper shelves. When it was all said and done, he thanked Gobber for showing him where to put the magazines away...and his little green eyes diverted to the chocolate cake in the glass container sitting up on the kitchen counter. His eyes got all big and he sucked on the tips of his fingers, lost in thought.

Gobber watched this, looking briefly back to the living room, wondering if he should just leave...then he looked at the cake, to Hiccup, and back to the cake again. And then it clicked. "Hiccup..." Gobber asked, "Do you still want a slice of cake?"

Hiccup turned his head, glancing to Gobber in silence before nodding.

"Y'know you could just ask, right?"

But the brunet shook his head. "Dad says I gotta clean."

Still a bit flabbergasted, Gobber tried to explain: "Child, that was only the other day, and your father wasn't being serious. He just didn't want you getting all riled up from cake before bed." He paused, and something seemed to cross Gobber's memory which gave him a whole new look of shock. "Is this why your room and bathroom were so tidy the other day?"

Hiccup shrugged his shoulders. "Didn't say it had to be the other day."

Jack huffed out in cool, crystallized breaths against his palm, and started _laughing._ Gobber seemed to find just as much amusement; with him, it started out slow, then erupted into belly-shaking guffaws that filled the whole kitchen. He told Hiccup he wouldn't have to clean the whole house, got a plate and a knife, and happily sliced the child a piece of chocolate cake, figuring he'd more than earned it on the grounds of tenacity alone. While Hiccup _beamed_ and thanked Gobber for the treat, his eyes were pulled to the kitchen window. Jack was so lost in laughter that he didn't catch Hiccup staring at him until a few seconds had passed; he gave the boy an endearing look, then disappeared, leaving trails of frost to curl over the glass.

Hiccup would be old enough for elementary school before they would have their first proper meeting.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stoick thinks Jack Frost is a bunch of nonsense, and Hiccup swears otherwise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, this chapter was supposed to have more to it, but I'm quitting while I'm ahead because I am SO unhappy with how the build-up turned out.

Although Jack tended to flit in and out of Hiccup's life as he pleased, watching and helping from afar, his assistance did not go unregistered in the child's mind. Eventually (even though it took a couple of years), Hiccup began to notice all the snow dragons left for him on the lawn, and the icicles on the tree branches outside his window, but only in _very specific_ spots, and the frost ferns that curled and branched on his window but nowhere else in the house. And the sudden, unexplainable snow piles that would drop onto Snotlout whenever he was being incredibly awful. That always made Hiccup smile.

Jack didn't expect that he would be a perfect ghost, but it surprised him how quickly Hiccup's imagination vaulted him into belief. He dove headlong into research - and that was exactly what it was, was research. Even when he was too young for Stoick to let him have a computer, he would ask his Uncle to take him to the library, and borrowed every book he could find on winter-themed fairy tales. Santa Clause and Old Man Winter, mainly, which just made Jack _laugh_ because he was so far off the mark. But he wised up as he got older; some of his own intuition, and a dash of help from his invisible Guardian.

Which was when he decided to start setting the "traps."

On the winter after he'd turned ten, the very month that the cold weather struck, Hiccup got the idea to begin leaving tripwires at his window and mouse traps buried in the snow out in the lawn and hanging on the tree branches outside his window. Week after week, the boy would come home from school to check his ingenious little traps, and as they continued to not work, they began to get more elaborate. Not that Hiccup necessarily had much to work with, but he did try. He iced up surfaces that he thought _Jack Frost_ might walk on, and with one particularly memorable one, wired up a bucket full of hot water that hung outside his window and would spill if anyone tried to open it. That one was set up a couple of weeks before Christmas, and it was the one that happened to rouse Stoick's ire when he came home to a house full of dangerous set-ups.

"I want them taken down, and that's that."

It was an order, not a suggestion, and Hiccup dug in his heels, frowning up at his father. "I didn't even leave that many! They're mostly around my room."

"Your _room?_ " Stoick sighed at him, sinking down into his sofa chair in the living room, "What are you so worried is going to come through your _room_?"

Hiccup stopped, fidgeting with his hands. "Uhhm...nothing?" He tried.

"It ain't _nothing_ that's got a frozen bucket of water outside your window," Stoick said. "You put that up before you went to school?"

"You wouldn't believe me," the brunet amended.

Stoick leaned forward challengingly. "Try me," he replied back.

That didn't help - that just made Hiccup more self-conscious of his answer. He rubbed at his wrists and wore a grimace on his face, flinching back slowly before he'd even said a word. "...Jack Frost?" He tried, the name sputtering out short on his tongue.

Predictably (not that Hiccup was surprised, or anything), his father stared at him in disbelief. His jaw went slack, and his eyebrows went up the way that they did when he thought there was a joke that had been said in very poor taste. "Jack Frost," he repeated.

" _See_ , you think I'm making this up," Hiccup pointed out, flailing in Stoick's direction.

Stoick sighed again, and rubbed at the bridge of his nose as if nursing a headache. "You're too old to believe in fairy tales, son."

"Who says?!" Hiccup replied back, "Tom Cruise gets to believe in aliens that stick to your soul and make you do bad things with _no proof,_ but I can't believe in something I can catch?"

" _How_ did you-? Nevermind," Stoick sputtered, blinking rapidly for a moment when Tom Cruise came into the conversation. He would have to talk to Gobber about Hiccup's television consumption. "That's not the same thing, for one, and for another, you don't have much proof for this Jack Frost, either."

Hiccup crossed his arms over his chest. "Yeah I do," he argued, "He's the one who builds all those snow dragons on our lawn."

"So you _still_ haven't thanked the Hoffersons for those?" Stoick asked, alarmed.

" _It wasn't the Hoffersons_!" Hiccup groaned, rolling his eyes. Was he talking to a wall? "He sits right outside my window during the winter-"

Stoick put up both hands. "Stop," he interrupted, shaking his head. "I've heard enough."

Hiccup wasn't done, and he hated that he was being cut off right as he was getting to the proof. "But _dad_ -"

"I _said,_ I've heard enough!" Stoick raised his voice enough to silence Hiccup, who immediately clamped his mouth shut and stood with heated cheeks puffed out, wearing a bitter expression. "Take the bucket down and remove all of your traps before you go to bed. And please, for the love of everything holy, _don't_ put any more up."

This was how all of their conversations went when they didn't agree, and Hiccup didn't understand it. He sighed irritably, and went upstairs to de-trap his room, wondering why he was never allowed to say what he wanted to say. Most of the time, it wasn't even with things like this. The spring family fishing trips produced much the same result: all Hiccup knew about fishing was that he didn't like it and was terrible at it. He had to get up unbelievably early every morning for spring break, then sit perfectly still in a boat with his Uncle and father for hours, and then depending on where they went fishing, sometimes he wasn't even allowed to eat what he caught. But the payoff was that he got a lot of praise and his father always seemed proud of him when he got a big catch. So, that was something, he supposed.

It took him half an hour to take down all the spots he'd set up, and Hiccup was left with a bucket of a solid block of ice (that he glared at like it had done some horrible wrong) in his room in the loft level of their home, but he'd followed his father's instruction. He didn't say anything more about Jack Frost the rest of the day; he wanted to enjoy the rest of his Friday before the weekend, and that meant avoiding anything that might upset his dad. Dinner passed in silence, and he found himself looking out at the windows and passively participating with any questions Stoick posed. ("Yes, my homework's done, thank you for dinner, I know, curfew's at eleven, sure I'll get the dishes.")

He managed to squeeze in about an hour of his favorite shows in front of the television after steaming up the kitchen with hot water doing the dishes before retreating to his room, where Hiccup stayed up on his laptop and talked with a couple of kids from school until the Net Nanny on his computer cut off his Internet access at eleven. Annoying and inconvenient, but not a complete block. All he did was switch from Internet to reading. Quiet activities didn't bother anyone and his father couldn't catch him with it.

He still kept the window open, though, just a crack. Hiccup didn't particularly care what his father thought of the whole thing - he had his convictions, and that was enough. And hey, if traps weren't working, maybe if he just left Jack Frost an open invitation, he would end up lucky.

Hiccup fell asleep wrapped up in blankets from the cold seeping in through the open window, with his copy of _Artemis Fowl and the Arctic Incident_ flipped upside-down on the bed beside his pillow around 12:30 in the morning. He woke up an hour later to a blast of air rolling through that was so frigid it sank down through all of the quilts and blankets he had cocooned himself in.

Shivering, the brunet dragged his feet as he got out of bed, taking one of the topmost blankets with him to keep warm. He almost tripped over the bucket of frozen water still sitting by his window as he went to close the wide-open window, yawning and pulling it closed. He was so tired that he almost missed the decorative frost twisting and turning around on the glass, which Hiccup blinked at, and touched with his fingertips curiously, because he had a feeling he knew where it came from. That meant he had to be here again, though...and this was also the first time Hiccup had seen the frost on the inside of the window.

He probably spent a moment or two simply puzzling over and admiring the formation on his window before he finally turned around, not finding any part of Jack Frost outside and too tired to remain awake. When he went on his way back to bed, the first thing greeting Hiccup's sight was a white-haired teenager bent over his bed, head tipped at a strange angle as he examined the book on his pillow.

" _Geez!_ " Hiccup wasn't keeping tabs on how high he jumped, exactly, but he essentially made good on that close call from earlier and ended up kicking the bucket nearby before stumbling into the window with his toes stinging from the pain and the cold.

The teenager by his bed looked up, and even in the dark Hiccup could see his eyes were blue enough to match the fabric of his hoodie. He smiled, a crooked wooden staff in one hand as he straightened up and leaned on it. "Good book?" He asked. "Looks pretty interesting."

For a long time, Hiccup just _stared_ , bundled up in his blankets. He was in the middle of processing, because _normally,_ he realized, if one was to find a complete stranger in their bedroom, the natural reaction would be to run or call for help. Which Hiccup... _swore..._ he would _totally_ do. The minute he started feeling terrified. Possibly after getting an answer for the question that was stuck on his tongue after absorbing everything he noticed and saw about this person.

"...Are you...uh..." he started awkwardly, pointing without any clear direction.

Jack waited patiently, eyebrows up, a smile on his face. "Uhuh? Am I what?"

Hiccup didn't sound any more sure than when he'd tried this with his father, but there was more anticipation in his heart and less fear. "Jack Frost?"

Jack tipped his head, making a sweeping gesture with his arms. "Good to finally meet you in person, Hiccup."


End file.
